Four Things and a Lizard
by DocFanFive-TimeTraveler
Summary: When the episode 'Blink' ended, the Doctor's adventure was just beginning. How did the Doctor and Martha end up being snatched by the weeping angels?
1. The Beginning and the End

Four Things and a Lizard Chapter 1 The Beginning or the End

"Anyway…" said Larry to Sally. "Back in a mo'." He left the video shop just as a black taxi pulled up in front. Sally slowly stood up, her mind racing as a tall, thin man in a trench coat with a bow slung over his shoulder got out of the car, followed by a dark skinned woman with a quiver of arrows. Sally raced to the door, catching them before they crossed the street.

"Doctor! Doctor, Doctor!" she shouted. The Doctor turned to her, an expression of surprise on his face.

"Hello…" he said, "Sorry, there's a sort of thing… happening… very important that we… stop it."

"Oh my god, it's you!" cried Sally. "It really is you!" the Doctor looked at her, confused, obviously not recognizing her. "Oh, you don't remember me, do you."

Martha ran over, urgently speaking to the Doctor. "Doctor, we haven't got time for this. The migration's started…"

"Sorry, look. I've got a bit of a… complex life. Things don't always happen to me in quite the right order." He paused and shrugged, Martha waiting impatiently in the background. "Gets a bit confusing at times. Especially weddings. I'm rubbish at weddings… 'specially my own."

"Oh my god, of course!" Sally paused, the realization coming to her face, "You're a time traveler, it hasn't happened to you yet, none of it! It's still in your future!"

"What hasn't happened-" started the Doctor, only to be cut off by Martha, her voice full of urgency.

"Doctor, please! Twenty minutes to red hatching!" she cried, tugging on his arm.

"It was me! Oh, for god's sake, it was me all along, you got it all from me!" Sally was grinning now, finally figuring it out.

The Doctor's face became even more confused. "Got what?" he asked.

"Ok." Sally took a deep breath, preparing to explain it all. "Listen. One day, you're going to get stuck. In 1969. Make sure you've got this with you." She handed him a purple folder, containing a transcript of their conversation though the television, pictures of the writing inside Wester Drumlins, and the letter from Kathy. The Doctor took it and looked at it. "You're gonna need it."

"Doctor!" cried Martha, even more urgently that before.

"Yeah, listen, gotta dash." said the Doctor. "Things… happening- well, four things- well, four things… and a lizard."

Sally nodded. "Ok. No worries, you're needed there. See you around someday!" she called as the Doctor started to turn and run away.

"What was your name?" he asked, pausing.

"Sally Sparrow." She replied.

"Good to meet you, Sally Sparrow." Said the Doctor.

Larry walked up behind Sally. She looked at him, and, taking his hand, she said, "Goodbye, Doctor." Then they walked back into their shop. The Doctor watched them go, then ran off to meet up with Martha.


	2. Tempting Fate

Four Things and a Lizard Chapter 2 Tempting Fate

In the TARDIS, there are other rooms than the main control room. Martha and the Doctor were in one of these rooms, sitting next to each other at a large desk on the Doctor's study and pouring over the folder Sally had given them.

"So what are we going to do?" asked Martha, after she had finished reading the transcript of the conversation the doctor had had- or will have had- over the television with Sally. "This will obviously happen at some point in our future, but can we control when it happens?"

The Doctor shook his head. "It will happen when it happens. We can't try to stop it- for all we know, the actions we take to avoid it will cause it to happen. All we can do is try to make it happen as soon as possible."

"So… what are we going to do?" Martha asked again.

"Martha, how do you fancy a trip to-" he held up the picture of the house Sally had first seen the writing in, "-Wester Drumlins?"

"And what are we going to do there?" Martha asked as the Doctor gathered up the pictures and papers and shoved them in his coat.

"We're going to tempt fate!" he said gleefully. The two of them left the study and walked though the winding corridors of the TARDIS back to the control room. The Doctor flicked switches and pulled levers, while Martha stood by, regarding the Doctor's antics with a mixture of amusement and amazement. The screechy wheezing sound started up again, followed by a final thump, and the TARDIS set down.

As the two stepped out, Martha asked, "Well, I know where we are. The question is, when are we?"

"I set us down about a year before the events that prompted Sally to give us the folder." He replied, starting walking up to the gates. He quickly sonicked the lock, and stepped though. Martha followed, nervously fingering her TARDIS key in her pocket.

The Doctor suddenly ran back to the TARDIS. "Wait!" he exclaimed, and turned something on. He spoke as clearly as he possibly could- this would be the final bit that would get the TARDIS back to them.

"This is security protocol seven-one-two." He made the number off of the top of his head- hopefully he didn't already have a protocol 712, but that was the first number that he had thought of. "This time capsule has detected the presence of an authorized control disk. Valid one journey." He paused to allow them to realize that the DVD that he would eventually make was a control disk. "Please insert the disk, and prepare for departure." He tapped controls into the TARDIS in order to have it automatically scan any DVD that entered the control room. If it detected a video of him and Martha on it- saying anything- it would send the TARDIS to the basement of Wester Drumlins, on January 1, 1970. He figured that he should give himself some time, just in case.

He then ran back out of the TARDIS, and rejoined a somewhat confused but bemused Martha at the gates.

They poked about the house for about an hour, the Doctor finally yelling down to Martha from the attic.

"Martha, come here, quick!"

Martha ran up the stairs, her heart pounding. The Doctor was standing very still, opposite a large stone statue of an angel covering its eyes.

"What is it?" she asked, regarding it nervously.

"It's called a Weeping Angel. Keep your eyes on it, and don't blink." When Martha nodded, he carefully stepped around it, and looked out the window. "Oh, no…" he said, as an oversized pickup truck drove away with the TARDIS in its back. "Martha?"

He spun around, but Martha was gone. Her TARDIS key was lying on the ground where she had been standing, and the Weeping Angel was standing over it, half bent down to pick it up.

"Oh no you don't!" the Doctor cried, leaping for the key. He hit the ground had about a foot in front of the Angel, his landing causing him to gasp for breath and… blink. There was the sound of scraping stone, and everything went black.


	3. 1969

Four Things and a Lizard Chapter 3 1969

The Doctor woke up, with Martha standing over him looking worried.

"It got you too?" she asked, disappointed.

The Doctor didn't respond right away, groaning slightly and holding his head. "Owwwwww…" he said, annoyed. "I didn't realize the touch of an angel was so... painful."

Martha nodded. "I was disorientated for a week afterwards. I wouldn't blame you if…" she broke off as she saw that the Doctor was already up with his customary grin on his face.

"Blame me if I what?" he said, but he already knew what Martha was going to say.

"… if you needed to take a break…" Martha finished lamely.

"A break? Sleep is for tortoises!" cried the Doctor, already pulling the purple folder from his pocket. Martha stopped herself from asking 'How did it fit in there?' at the last moment, knowing the answer would be somewhere along the lines of them being 'bigger on the inside.'

"So… what's our first stop?" she asked.

The Doctor ignored her, checking his watch, then sonicking it. The hands spun for a moment, then set themselves at the correct local time. "Martha, how long were you here without me?" he asked.

"A week and a half- ten days exactly." She responded. "I was pretty out of it for the first day or so, and then I got a job at a shop near here, and rented out a flat about a block from this spot. I figured that you would arrive after me, and that you'd arrive in the same place."

The Doctor nodded approvingly. "So we have ten days until Detective Inspector Shipton arrives."

"Who?"

"Billy." Responded the Doctor, pulling out a picture, and a short note on what Billy had told Sally. "So I need to make my timey-wimey detector, and you need to go back to work."

Martha wacked the Doctor on the back of the head, causing him to groan. "Shut up, you. I'm not looking forward to having to support you."

The Doctor grinned. "But you'll do it anyway!" he raced off, leaving Martha behind to return to her job at the nearby shop.


	4. Billy

Four Things and a Lizard Chapter 4 Billy

Nine days later, the Doctor and Martha walked back to the spot where they had been transported to when they first joined the twentieth century.

"Are you sure he'll show up here… tonight?" asked Martha. "I thought that you said that it would be ten days. It's only been nine!"

"Martha, do you trust me and my timey-wimey detector?" he asked, his face slightly irritated. They had taken a wrong turn, and now they wouldn't be there when her first arrived.

"I trust you. That thing? I trusted it until it blew up that hen at the farmer's market. You had a pretty time trying to explain THAT one." She almost laughed, but caught the Doctor's expression. This was not a time for laughing.

The little device, which looked like it had been cobbled together from an old radio, a telephone, and a small fan, suddenly started dinging. "And here we go!" exclaimed the Doctor. Martha followed him down into the Underground tunnel near where the Doctor had ended up, and arrived just as a black man slammed up against the tunnel wall. He had appeared from nowhere.

As he slid down the wall and groaned slightly, the Doctor called out "Welcome!"

The man looked up. "Where am I?" he said, obviously very confused.

"1969." Replied the Doctor. "Not bad as it goes, you've got the moon landing to look forward to."

Martha grinned at the mention. "Oh, the moon landing's brilliant- we went four times." She turned to the Doctor, her good humor fading somewhat. "Back when we still had transport."

"Working on it!" exclaimed the Doctor, his tone irritated.

"How did I get here?"

"Same way we did." responded the Doctor. "Touch of an angel." He walked over to the man and sat down next to him. "Same one, probably, since you ended up in the same year…"

Billy started to get up, but the Doctor grabbed his shoulder and forced him back down. "No, no no no no no." he said. "Time travel without a capsule- nasty. Better catch your breath and don't go swimming for half an hour."

"I- I don't… I can't…"

"Fascinating race, the weeping angels." said the Doctor, cutting off his inarticulate sentence. "The only psychopaths in the universe to kill you nicely. No mess, no fuss, they just zap you into the past and let you live to death. The rest of your life used up and blown away in the blink of an eye." He paused, letting that sink in. "You die in the past, and in the present they consume the energy of the days that you might have had. All those stolen moments…"

He sniffed slightly, then continued, "They're creatures of the abstract- they live off of potential energy." He paused to let Billy react.

"What in god's name are you talking about?" asked Billy. He seemed more irritated than confused, now.

Martha cut in before the Doctor could answer. "Trust me, just nod when he stops for breath."

The Doctor held up the device. "Tracked you down with this. THIS is my timey-wimey detector. Goes ding when there's stuff. Also, it can boil an egg at thirty paces. Whether you want it to or not, actually. I've learned to stay away from hens." He paused, then continued in a stage whisper. "It's not pretty when they blow…"

"I don't understand- where am I?"

"1969, like he said." said Martha.

"Ordinarily, I'd offer you a lift home, but someone nicked my motor. So I need you to take you a message to Sally Sparrow." The Doctor looked straight at Billy. "And I'm sorry, Billy. I am really, very sorry. It's gonna take you a while."

Billy looked at the Doctor. "What is it?"

The Doctor offered him a hand and helped him up. "You were- sorry, will be- a police officer, correct?"

Billy nodded. "Yes. So?"

"I need you to do something for me." said the Doctor. "This time, go into video publishing. When these shows need to be sent out, make sure you publish them. But something needs to be put on them first, and I need your help with that too."

"Why should I do that?" asked Billy.

"Because if you don't, it's very likely that Sally Sparrow will die- the same fate that you and I and Martha will share." The Doctor said very seriously. "Come with me." He started walking with Martha back to their flat, not even bothering to see if Billy was coming. Billy hesitated, then ran behind them intrigued by what this mysterious man had told him.


	5. Don't Blink

Four Things and a Lizard Chapter 5 Don't Blink

Billy watched as the Doctor set up a small camera on a stand, facing a table and a chair.

"When I give the signal, press that button there." The Doctor said, pointing to a small red button reading 'record.'

"Signal?" asked Billy.

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "I'll just say go. I won't say anything for the first five seconds, don't worry. Then I'll start reading off of that-" he pointed to a small screen next to Billy. "-and you keep filming until I say 'stop'. Alright?"

Billy nodded. "Alright… I guess."

"Go."

"What? You're not even sitting down yet!" cried Billy.

"Just start filming!" said the Doctor. Billy shrugged, and started filming. The Doctor turned on the auto-cue, and then sat down. He adjusted his position, put on his glasses, and read his first line.

"Yup, that's me."

Pause.

"Yes, I do."

"Yup, and this."

"Are you gonna read out that whole thing?"

"I'm a time traveler. Or, I was. I'm stuck. In 1969."

Martha cut in here, timing it as the Doctor had trained her to do. "We're stuck. All of space and time he promised me, now I got a job in a shop, I have to support him!"

"Martha!" cried the Doctor.

"Sorry." She said, and left the frame.

"Quite possibly"

"'fraid so."

"38!"

"People don't understand time- it's not what you think it is."

"Complicated."

"Very complicated."

"People assume that time is a straight progression of cause to effect but actually from a non-linear non-subjected viewpoint it's more like a ball of wibbly-wobbly timey wimey. ...stuff."

"It got away from me, yeah."

"Well I can hear you."

"Well not hear you exactly but I know everything you're gonna say."

"Look to your left."

"I've got a copy of the finished transcript. It's on my autocue."

"I told you I'm a time traveler I got it in the future." The Doctor wanted to break script here, and tell her who it was who had given it to him. But in order to maintain the timeline and get out of this mess, he would have to not do it. He looked back at the autocue, and continued reading.

"Wibbly wobbly timey wimey."

"What matters is we can communicate, we've got big problems now. They have taken the blue box haven't they? The angels have the phone box?"

"Creature from another world."

"Only when you see them." He braced himself. He had a long talk in front of him, and he had to sound natural, not as if he were reading it off (which he would be.)

"The lonely assassins they used to be called. No one quite knows where they came from but they're as old as the universe or very nearly and they have survived this long because they have the most perfect defense system ever evolved. They are quantum locked. They don't exist when they're being observed. The moment they are seen by any other living creature they freeze into rock. No choice, it's a fact of their biology. In the sight of any living thing they literally turn to stone, and you can't kill a stone. 'Course, a stone can't kill you either but then you turn your head away. Then you blink. And oh yes it can."

"That's why they cover their eyes. They're not weeping, they can't risk looking at each other. They're greatest asset is they're greatest curse. They can never be seen. Loneliest creatures in the universe. And I'm sorry, I'm very, very sorry it's up to you now."

"The blue box, that's my time machine. There's a world of time energy in there they could feast on forever but the damage they could do could switch off the sun. You have got to send it back to me." He sighed. The end was fast approaching, and he wished that he could tell them more. But they would survive. They had to have, or he wouldn't be doing this.

"And that's it I'm afraid, there's no more from you on the transcript, that's the last I've got. I don't know what stopped you talking but I can guess. They're coming. The angels are coming for you but listen; your life could depend on this. Don't blink, don't even blink! Blink and you're dead. They're fast, faster than you can believe. Don't turn your back, don't look away, and don't blink! Good Luck."

The Doctor paused, then told Billy, "stop." What he didn't get a response, he found Billy and Martha in the other room, having tea and eating dinner together. "You just LEFT ME?" he cried. "That was rude."

Martha stood up. "Sorry, Doctor, but… no offense, but you're really boring when you're talking to yourself."

The Doctor sighed. "Billy, the TARDIS should show up for us in two days' time. We need to go now, but tell Sally…"

"What?"

"Tell Sally to look at the list." The Doctor sighed. "You can never go and see her, you know, before she meets you. Otherwise it'll rip a hole in the fabric of space and time and destroy two thirds of the universe." He looked away from Billy as he said his parting words. "You can have the flat. We prepaid for the next three months, just on case we were stuck here, but we have two days until January first. The TARDIS will be at Wester Drumlins. And Billy. I'm sorry. I'm really, very sorry, but the last time you see Sally will be the day you die." He grabbed his coat and walked to the door.

"You'll have until the rain stops."


	6. Wester Drumlins

Four Things and a Lizard Chapter 6 Wester Drumlins

Martha had enough money to hire a taxi to take them to Wester Drumlins. She tried to get the Doctor to talk with her, just some small talk, but he seemed to be lost in thought. Eventually she gave up, and let him sit silently.

He shuffled though the photos that Sally had taken, finally landing on the photo of his writing from below the wallpaper.

"Oh, no." he said, his face paling. "Martha, what time is it?"

Martha shrugged and checked her watch. "Twenty-one hundred. Why?"

The Doctor held up the photo. "I did this writing in 1969. If we don't get there in time, the wallpaper might not re-dry until 1970. And that could throw us off. Big time." He leaned around the seat in front of him. "Driver? How long until we get to Wester Drumlins?"

"Not long." Replied the driver, a young man of twenty or thirty. "Maybe an hour or two? Why?"

The Doctor shook his head in worry. "We're going to be cutting it close." He muttered. He then pulled off his coat and began fishing through the pockets. Soon Martha had a pile of random things- cricket balls, a paper bag full of jelly babies, a mini recorder, and a folded up umbrella, a motorized mouse, toothbrushes, and a packet of paper. Finally he pulled out a bottle of oil paints and a brush, and a bottle of wallpaper glue.

This time, Martha couldn't restrain herself. "HOW do you fit all that stuff in there?"

The Doctor answered exactly as she knew he would- "Well, they're bigger on the inside!" He slowly put all the stuff back in his pocket. The cricket ball went in last, after being tossed about by the Doctor a couple of times.

They finally arrived at the house. Running inside, Martha ran down to the cellar to see if the TARDIS had shown up early. The Doctor walked around the house until he found the spot in the picture. He used the sonic to get the wall paper off in one piece. Then wrote:

BEWARE

THE WEEPING ANGELS

OH, AND DUCK!

NO, REALLY, DUCK!

SALLY SPARROW

DUCK NOW

LOVE FROM

THE DOCTOR

1969.

He waited an hour or two, ate dinner with Martha, and then Martha went to sleep. The Doctor stayed up all night, waiting for the paint to dry.

The next morning, the Doctor shook Martha awake. "Martha! Get up! I need your help to put back up the wall paper!"

With Martha's help, the wallpaper went up only slightly crooked and wrinkled. After it had dried, he ripped the corner away slightly, exposing the 'B' of BEWARE. Satisfied, the Doctor and Martha once again ate dinner together, and went downstairs. The Doctor had no idea of when the TARDIS would exactly show up, so the two settled down for a long night of waiting.

It was late the next night when the familiar wheezing and groaning noise was finally heard echoing though the basement. The Doctor stood up quickly, forgetting that Martha had been asleep, her head on his shoulder. She slipped as he stood, and her head thwacked against the hard floor. With a groan and a curse, she stood up and followed the Doctor to where the TARDIS was materializing.

With a final thump, the blue police box appeared right in front of them. The Doctor fumbled in his pocket for the key, but the door was still unlocked. He pushed it open, and ran to the console to make sure that nothing had been damaged.

Martha was still standing in the doorway, staring at the interior as if it was her first time.

"Martha?" said the Doctor. "You ok?"

She nodded. "I just never thought- even with all of your assurances- that I would ever see this place again." She paused, then looked at the Doctor. "What now?"

"Well…" said the Doctor. "She needs to refuel. How does Cardiff sound to you?"

As odd as a destination Cardiff seemed to Martha, she nodded enthusiastically. "Cardiff it is."


	7. I Never Thanked You Properly Epilogue

Four Things and a Lizard Chapter Seven I Never Thanked You Properly

The Doctor ran through Amy Pond's garden to his TARDIS. After sending the Atraxi packing, the key had told him that it was finally fixed from his last disastrous regeneration. He placed a hand on the door, and walked in. He could take this ship anywhere he wanted, any time he wanted. Thinking back to what her had done just before the his regeneration- saved Mickey and Martha from the Sontaran, pushing Luke (Sarah Jane Smith's son) out of the way of a car and waving goodbye to her, introducing Jack Harkness to Alonso Frame, meeting the great granddaughter of one of only two human woman her had truly loved, and meeting Rose for the last time, he realized that there was one thing that he had never done.

He had given Sally Sparrow a seemingly impossible task. One that he needed done, without ever thinking about what she had lost. Flicking a switch on the TARDIS console, he decided that the Moon could wait. It was time to buy a DVD. He put several pound notes in his pocket, as well as the list of the DVDs with the 'Easter egg' of him on it. He pulled on his jacket, straightened his bowtie, and stepped out onto the street corner and down the street to the shop that he had first met Sally at.

He waited to go up until the assistant was gone and Sally and Larry were at the desk. He straightened his bowtie one last time, then went up.

"Excuse me." He said. "Do you have any of these titles here?"

Larry nodded. "You like Easter eggs?"

"You could say that." Responded the Doctor.

Larry went to the back, and came back with the stack of DVDs. "Here" He said. "That'll be twenty pounds."

The Doctor paid, and then said, "thank you."

Sally nodded. "You're welcome."

The Doctor lingered for one more moment. "Thank you for everything."

Sally looked a little started, but didn't say anything until he was almost out of the door. "hey, mister!" she called. "What's your name again?"

The Doctor turned to her, and smiled slightly. "I am the Doctor." He then turned and left the shop, leaving Sally and Larry to puzzle over the significance of his parting words.


End file.
